Widely ranked among Hollywood’s greatest spiritual parables, Groundhog Day has been claimed by existentialists, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, and Christians of all communions. Projection? In specifics, perhaps; in evocative power, no. A comic fantasy conceit—a single day Bill Murray keeps reliving—occasions sharply funny soundings in helplessness, power, consequences, immortality, nihilism, longing, love, self-indulgence, self-worship, self-awareness, and finally selflessness and growth, with Andie MacDowell as Murray’s Beatrice, guiding him to true fulfillment. The movie’s master-stroke: its silence on why Murray becomes stuck—and unstuck.
—Steven D. Greydanus